


your heart is brighter than your smile

by Aesoleucian



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU where Hinata can see ghosts basically, Gen, never going to be finished
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:34:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8847022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: Hinata is all of five years old when she finally realizes that most of the people she likes are dead. You wouldn't think that would change her relationship with the living, but it does.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> PROBABLY I'm never going to finish this but it's cute enough that I wanted to post it. Also finals week is stressing me out and I want to put nice things online.

Hinata realizes it on her fifth birthday, when her mother tells her that a proper lady is not sarcastic. She doesn’t understand why, but she _hates_ being scolded. “I wasn’t,” she says, with tears in her eyes. “I’m really happy so many people came to my party.”

“The only people here are me and your sister,” says her mother. She’s giving Hinata a _look_ , the one that means she’s thinking her daughter is stupid but is too proper a lady to say it. Hinata nods and looks down and apologizes, and tries to ignore the rest of the people in the room, the ones who her mother says aren’t there. Maybe they’re outcasts, or they’re servants and they didn’t tell her.

Later that night she goes out to the garden where Yuuho-oba-chan is weaving, to ask her. “Good evening, oba-chan,” she says politely. Yuuho-oba-chan nods at her. “Doesn’t weaving by moonlight strain your eyes?”

“Hah! The day I give up weaving just because I haven’t got a lantern is the day they put me back in the ground.”

“All right, oba-chan. Can I ask you something?” Yuuho-oba-chan nods again, still concentrating on her weaving. “Why did Mama say you weren’t at my party? Is she mad at you so she’s pretending you don’t exist, like my cousin does sometimes?”

Yuuho-oba-chan stops and looks around, like she really is surprised. “No, she just can’t see me. Your eyes are special, girl. Or maybe your heart. Either way, you’re the only one I’ve ever met who can see me.”

“You were talking to oji-chan this morning,” Hinata points out.

“Oh, he’s dead too. He doesn’t count. Gave me a real fright, you know, when he could suddenly see me. I didn’t even realize he’d died for a week! He still won’t tell me what happened, the prune.”

Hinata’s eyes fill with tears again. “Oji-chan’s _dead_? Is that why Neji-nii-san never talks to him any more? I thought he was mad at him!”

“Oh, don’t cry, girl. People die. This world isn’t fair, and that’s just how it is.”

“But… we try to make it fair, right?” she asks. “We’ve got to try!”

Yuuho-oba-chan’s face softens into a smile, and she pats Hinata on the head. “That’s what’s special about your heart, girl. Never stop believing that, and you can make it true.”

So she makes sure to believe it with all her heart. It’s kind of hard to act on it when her maid goes everywhere with her—it’s like she’s trying hard to keep Hinata from making things more fair. When she finally manages to slip away, she goes to find the ghost boy who she’s not allowed to talk to.

She’s not actually sure if he’s a ghost. Most of the time everyone pretends they can’t see him, like her mother at her fifth birthday party, but sometimes they kick him and shout insults at him. She’s come to the conclusion that he’s a part-time ghost who doesn’t like being alive because everyone’s so mean to him. Right now he’s curled into a ball in the bushes, being very quiet.

“Hello, Ghost-san,” she whispers. He uncurls from his ball suddenly, looking scared and ready to run, so she bows to him. “Sorry for startling you. I wanted to introduce myself but I didn’t have a chance before now. I’m Hyuuga Hinata.”

“G-ghost?” he asks, wide-eyed. “I’m not a ghost! I’m totally alive!”

“Oh! Really? I’m so sorry!” She bows again. She’s trying not to cry, but she looks like an idiot. Of course he’s not a ghost.

“Aw, shit, don’t cry! It’s okay! I just wanna know why you thought I was a ghost. Ghosts aren’t real, ya know.”

“That’s what my mother says,” murmurs Hinata. “My uncle, who _is_ a ghost, says he’s real, and I believe him. And Yuuho-oba-chan, and Izuna-san, and Tsuyu-nee-chan, and…” She’s talked for too long. “And everyone,” she whispers. “Sorry.”

“Oh!” says the ghost boy. “I get it! You can see ghosts but everyone else can’t! That makes a lot of sense. Um, um, I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I’m alive, though. Actually, I’m gonna be the next Hokage, ya know! A ghost would never be able to be the Hokage!”

“That’s amazing, Naruto-san,” says Hinata politely. She wishes she had an excited voice, to show him that she really does think it’s amazing, but the only voice she knows how to use now is her polite voice. “I’ll cheer for you.”

“Thanks, Hinata-chan! I’ll do even better if you’re rooting for me!” His grin is beautiful, even with his missing teeth.

“Hinata-sama?” calls her maid, and she freezes. “Hinata-sama, where have you run off to? If you’re in the forest you’re going to get such a scolding! You’ll get your kimono dirty!”

“I have to go,” she says. “Sorry, Naruto-san. It was really nice to meet you!”

“I’m glad I met you too, Hinata-chan! And you should introduce me to some of your ghost friends some time!”

Hinata goes home with her maid and gets scolded for the dirt on the front of her kimono. She cries and hides in the corner, because she _hates_ being scolded, but Nawaki-nii-san comes and tries to cheer her up. She tells Nawaki-nii-san about Naruto-san. She thinks they would like each other, although when she tells him about Naruto saying a ghost couldn’t become Hokage, he scowls and mutters, “Don’t remind me.”

She also makes sure to tell Ren-chan that she met her cousin. Maybe not really a cousin, since it sounds like the Uzumaki clan was pretty large, but Ren-chan is excited anyway. She wants to meet Naruto-san too. Unfortunately, Hinata has to be there so they can talk to each other, and she’s not allowed out of the compound for a week for getting dirty.

Since she can’t leave, she stays and trains hard, and tries to get better even when she fails a hundred times and feels like sitting down and crying. Finally, she does sit down to cry because she _hates_ to hurt people, even the trainer who’s ten times better than her and won’t _really_ be hurt if she punches with all her five-year-old strength. She sits in the shade of a tree by the outside wall and curls up like Naruto-san does.

“Hey, Hinata,” says Izuna-san. She doesn’t look up at him. “You’re not having a great time with training, huh?” She shakes her head just a little. “I don’t like how your father treats you. He shouldn’t be that harsh. You’re really doing a fine job, okay? You’re about as good as I was when I was five. And that was when there was a war on. So don’t worry.”

She raises her head just enough to look at him. Like always, he looks tired. She hopes he’s not annoyed that he has to comfort her. “Could… could you teach me, Izuna-san? If, if it’s not too much trouble. Father is always telling me I’m too timid, but I don’t _want_ to hurt anyone. Maybe I shouldn’t be learning to fight at all.”

“You’re the clan’s heir, aren’t you? That means you’ll have to fight some day. But you don’t really like the Hyuuga style, so you should learn an evasive style that will tire your opponent out without having to strike them. What do you think of that? Winning without ever landing a hit.”

“That sounds amazing, Izuna-san. Are you willing to teach me?”

“Of course. I always thought I’d make a pretty good teacher, but I never got the chance to try until now. Let’s see your defensive stance.”

She scrambles to her feet and shows him. He walks around her, one hand on his chin. “Not bad. I wish I had a real body, so I could try pushing you over to see how stable you are. Try throwing your weight backward and see if you can recover. Good, good. Now to your right. You’ll have a better recovery if you turn instead of trying to watch your opponent the whole time. Excellent! Now I’m going to come at you. You want to avoid my strikes with the least possible energy, and recover into a position that’s stable but where you can also move freely.”

Her legs are already shaking with tiredness, but she likes Izuna-san’s lessons much better than the ones her father oversees. Her father never tells her what she’s doing wrong, just that she needs to be _better_. Izuna-san gives her suggestions, and when she doesn’t understand he doesn’t get as angry as her father does. She learns that he used to teach his younger brothers, who weren’t geniuses like his older brother. He understands different ways of learning, and Hinata is very grateful to have him. There must be other children who are trying to learn taijutsu and ninjutsu and don’t have a teacher like Izuna-san.

She practices until she nearly collapses. Izuna-san tells her off for pushing herself too hard and coaxes her back to her room, where she passes out on her bed without even changing.


	2. Chapter 2

Once she asks Ren-chan why some people are ghosts and some aren’t—Ren-chan is closest to her in age, since she died when she was eleven, and Hinata doesn’t want to embarrass herself to one of the adults. Ren tells her, “I’m a ghost because I didn’t want to let go of this world. I was supposed to come to Konoha for the shinobi exchange program and I sure wasn’t letting being dead stop me! I dunno about everyone else but that’s _my_ reason. I wanted to keep seeing things, and I still do.”

Yuuho-oba-chan says, “Hm? I stuck around to make sure everything wasn’t going to hell, and it’s a good thing I did! The way they’re running things now is disgraceful. I told them not to join Konoha, but would they _listen_?” Hinata thinks that staying around to watch over the future of the village would be a little more effective if Yuuho-oba-chan could actually affect the future, but she says nothing. It’s important to respect elders, after all.

Nawaki-nii-san says, “I stayed because I love Konoha and I want to see it grow.” His smile almost outshines the sun, and for a moment Hinata is very sad that he died, because he _should_ have been Hokage. She doesn’t ask her uncle, but she knows his reason is the same: he wants to watch his son grow up.

Tsuyu-nee-chan tells Hinata, “At first it was because I was bitter. I was _framed_ , you know.” Hinata knows; Tsuyu-nee-chan has told her the story many times now. “If they wouldn’t let me live in Konoha at least they couldn’t keep me from being _dead_ here.” She laughs without humor. “But I love this place anyway. No other village has flower gardens like Konoha.”

It takes a long time for Hinata to work up the courage to ask Izuna-san. He has an air of mystery, of melancholy, that makes his past seem like something he’s working to forget. They’re sitting on the porch watching the sunset—Hinata with a cup of tea, Izuna-san with the memory of one to keep her company—when she says, “I’ve heard that the reason people become ghosts is that they don’t want to let go of this world. I asked some of my… some of the ghosts I know, and it seems like they all stayed because of love.”

“And you don’t think I have that much love in me?” asks Izuna-san, glancing sideways at her.

“N-no! N-not at—at all! I didn’t mean to say that, Izuna-san!”

“You just want to know why I stayed.” She nods down at her tea. “It’s all right, Hinata. I’m not angry. And you’ve known me for three years, so it’s only natural you’d be curious. I’ll tell you.

“I was killed by Senju Tobirama. Back then, the Uchiha and the Senju were at war, and had been for generations, so it wasn’t really a surprise that it was a Senju that got me. Just before I died, I told my brother—he was clan head—never to trust them or make a treaty with them. I was so full of hatred, Hinata-chan, and I couldn’t bear to think that my hatred, at least, wouldn’t live when I was gone. There was so much I wanted to do that he took away from me. Anyway, after I died I followed my brother around, watching our clan grow weaker and wearier of war. Eventually he did give in and make a treaty with the Senju, but not before he almost made the clan head, Hashirama, kill himself to prove he was for real. Even I’ll admit that was an awful thing to do.” Izuna-san grimaces and sets aside his tablet, drawing up one knee to his chest. “But together they built the village I didn’t know I dreamed of. I watched Senju Hashirama work himself to the bone for shinobi clans he’d never met, and even civilian families who asked for his protection. There’s only so long you can watch someone give his whole life for a village before you kind of start to like him. Tobirama was the next Hokage, and even if I’ll never like him I did respect him.”

He pauses for a while, and Hinata tries not to stare imploringly at him. She wants to hear the rest of the story, but he’s lost in thought. “So…?” she says quietly.

“Hm? Oh, sorry. I was thinking about the founding of the Academy, kids learning just to learn and get stronger instead of die in battle, at least back then. Madara was so proud of it, even if none of the kids liked him. Actually, no-one in the village liked him. He left, and later came back to try to destroy it. He never got over my death, and that’s what hurt the most even if it’s exactly what I wanted when I died. Just like everyone else you asked, I really came to love Konoha, since I’ve been here for just about ninety years. Even if some of its traditions are… I’m trying to think of a polite way to say ass-backwards, but I’ve got nothing.” Hinata puts her hands over her mouth, playing at being more scandalized than she really is (she _has_ known him for three years) and he grins. “And now I’ve got you. You’re the kind of person who really gives me hope for the future of the village. I think you should become a shinobi.”

“I give you hope?” she whispers, awed. Izuna-san saw the founding of Konoha, practically knew all four Hokage, and _she_ gives him hope?

He smiles softly at her and puts a hand on her head that she can almost feel. “You just need a little more confidence, and you’ll really be able to change the world.”

No-one in her actual family has ever told her she can change the world. She swallows, and nods, wishing she could hug him for real. No-one in her family gives her hugs, either, except her little sister. And Hanabi-chan doesn’t get hugs from anyone else either. She hugs her own legs instead, but it’s not really the same. “How do I start?” she whispers. “What can I do to change the world?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” he says, “it’s that the best way to change the world is through kindness. You’re afraid of breaking rules in order to be kind, but you shouldn’t be. If I had looked past the rules that told me Uchiha and Senju had to fight, I could have helped prevent fifteen years of death and suffering. I don’t want you to have any regrets when you grow up, Hinata-chan, and I know you’re the one who can see us for a reason.”

She puts on her most determined face. She’ll make him proud of her. “Teach me how to track someone by their chakra,” she says.

A month later she’s sneaking out of the compound in the night to find Naruto-san. Her byakugan are barely developed enough to distinguish one chakra signature from another, but Izuna-san has taught her to “taste” chakra too, so she picks up Naruto-san’s trail at his favorite spot near the Academy and tracks him back to an apartment on what her maid calls _the bad side of town_. The lights are still on, and the stairs aren’t locked, so Hinata goes straight up.

“You know, I could’ve just followed him home and told you where he lives,” says Ren-chan.

“It was very good training,” says Hinata, trying to copy her mother’s haughty attitude. She doesn’t think it’s working well. “Now I know I can find anyone in the city as long as I’ve met them before, maybe even faster than you.”

“Oooh,” says Nawaki-nii-san. “Are you just gonna take that? You should challenge her to a race later and see who’s better.”

“Nah,” says Ren-chan, putting her arms casually behind her head and grinning at him. “It wouldn’t be fair. Her legs are so short, and I can fly.”

“I think I could still win,” says Hinata. “We should do it.” It will have to be at night, since her maid won’t let her run around Konoha wherever she wants. She might end up in the _bad part of town_ and be mugged or kidnapped! Hinata frowns, thinking about how she’ll be punished if anyone finds out about this. But like Izuna-san said, she’s being brave. She stops thinking about it and instead tries to be brave enough to knock on Naruto-san’s door. After two minutes of encouragement from Nawaki-nii-san and Ren-chan, she knocks loud enough to be audible.

“Comiiiiing,” says Naruto from inside. “Did you forget something, Jiji? Not that I’m complaining if you brought extra—oh! Hinata-chan! What are you doing here? Are you lost?”

She widens her eyes slightly, but she’s too polite to tell him how silly that question is. Ren-chan isn’t. “What kind of a dumb question is that?” she asks. “Who gets lost and ends up in a top-floor apartment at midnight? How does a _six-year-old_ end up in a top-floor apartment at midnight?”

“Ren-chan, that’s rude,” whispers Hinata. Then she realizes Naruto is staring at her, and blushes. “I, um, you said I should b-bring my friends to come ta-talk to you, and, and the only time I can sneak out of the com, uh, the compound, is at night… so…”

He beams, and holds open the door. “You snuck out of your fancy compound to come see me? And you brought friends? You’re the best, Hinata-chan! Come in, do you want some ramen?”

It’s impolite to refuse, so Hinata nods and takes a seat at his kitchen table. It’s stacked high with empty ramen cups, which he tries to shovel into the full garbage can so there will be room for her to eat. “It’s usually cleaner,” he mutters, blushing. Nawaki-nii-chan mutters, “Liar.”

“So, can you introduce me?” asks Naruto after he starts heating up water in the kettle. “To your ghost friends?”

“Oh, oh,” says Nawaki-nii-chan. “You should do the interpreter thing where you say exactly what I say, and try to do my voice! Don’t do your normal voice, or it’ll be confusing. Now say: I’m Senju Nawaki, pleased to meet you.”

“I’m, I’m Senju Nawaki,” she says. It’s _weird_ , and her voice isn’t deep enough to sound like Nawaki-nii-san. “Pleased to meet you.”

“And I’m Uzumaki Ren!”

She tries to make her voice sound bright like Ren-chan’s does. “And I’m Uzumaki Ren.”

She almost repeats it when Ren-chan says, “No good, you don’t sound excited enough. Tell him I’m excited.” But then she smiles slowly and repeats what Ren-chan said, word for word, including her “Hey! You weren’t supposed to repeat that!”

“Uzumaki?” asks Naruto-san, staring at Hinata. “I thought… I thought I was the only one.”

“Nope. Hinata-chan says we’re cousins or something. I was supposed to be an exchange student to Konoha from Uzushio about fifty years ago.”

Ren-chan and Hinata tell Naruto-san about Uzushiogakure, her village, with Nawaki-nii-chan adding funny comments and asking about Naruto-san’s hobbies and his life. It never seems to occur to Naruto-san that Hinata is making it all up, and she’s glad that he believes her. She doesn’t go home until almost dawn, and she’s tired and inattentive in training the next day. It doesn’t matter as much when her father shouts at her, even though he’s scary, because she has a warm secret in her chest: she has a friend who’s alive, and she’s going to be brave and change the world for him. So he won’t have to pretend to be a ghost ever again.


	3. Chapter 3

When Hinata finally enters the Academy, she makes it her mission to talk to other kids who look like ghosts. There’s a girl who’s not part of any ninja family, who hides her face behind her long hair; there’s a boy in the year above her who trains all the time when no-one’s watching, which is always; and then there’s the Uchiha boy who either thinks he’s too good to talk to anyone or doesn’t know how. Because she’s not _that_ brave yet, Hinata talks to the girl first during free target practice time.

“Y-you throw… you throw really well, Haruno-san,” she says quietly when the girl almost makes a bullseye on her first throw.

“Yeah?” says Haruno-san. She looks wary. “Um, thanks. You’re pretty good too. You’re Hyuuga Hinata, right?”

“Yes…” Hinata pushes her fingers together, wishing she had planned this conversation better. “Um, I thought you looked kind of lonely… so I wanted to ask if you’d be my friend…”

“My mama says being friends isn’t about what you say, it’s about what you do. So I can’t be your friend just by saying so.” Hinata isn’t sure if that’s a rejection, but it kind of feels like one. She bites her lip and looks down. “So do you want to get sweets after school?”

She looks up. “Oh! I do. I’m, um, not sure if I’m allowed, though. My maid is very strict, and I don’t want to get yelled at. Maybe you could come to my house for tea?”

“Sounds nice,” says Haruno-san, with a small smile.

“I’ll—I’ll ask my mother.”

The next day, Haruno-san visits the compound. Hinata thinks she’s trying not to stare—Hinata knows that most people don’t live in such big houses or have servants to keep them clean. But she’s never invited anyone home before, so she never had to be embarrassed about it. Now she’s embarrassed.

“What… what kinds of things do you like, Haruno-san?” Hinata asks quietly, while Haruno-san tastes her tea.

“Please call me Sakura,” she says, embarrassed. “Haruno-san is my papa.”

“Sorry, Sakura-san.”

“You… never mind. Um, I like reading, I guess. And flowers. My best friend’s family owns a flower shop.”

“Best friend?” Hinata has never seen her with anyone else.

“Yamanaka Ino. She… I don’t think she likes to be seen with me in public.” Sakura frowns sadly at her tea. “But at least she hangs out with me at all.”

“Yamanaka sounds like a pretty bad friend,” observes Yuuho-oba-chan as she peers in through the half-open door. Hinata almost tells her off for her rudeness, but at the last second she clamps her hands over her mouth because Sakura-san didn’t actually hear the insult.

“Are… you okay, Hinata-chan?”

“Fine,” squeaks Hinata. “Um, what do you like to read?”

“Nonfiction. There’s just so much to learn about different kinds of techniques and strategies…” She becomes much more animated as she tells Hinata about the battle strategy books and tales of cunning kunoichi she’s read. She even likes books about trade treaties and tax law, which Hinata finds very surprising. It’s all she can do to force herself to pay attention to politics, but Sakura-san is amazing. Hinata tells her that, and she blushes.

“Ino-chan always says I’m a nerdy bookworm who spends too much time reading,” she confesses.

“I take it back,” says Yuuho-oba-chan as she leaves. “Yamanaka is a _terrible_ friend.”

Sakura-san spends the rest of tea telling Hinata about a famous campaign from the first shinobi world war. It’s much more interesting than when Hinata’s tutor explains it, because Sakura-san is _excited_. Even if she doesn’t exactly know what’s going on in some parts.

The next night she goes to visit Naruto-san to tell him about making a new friend. She thought he would be excited, but he frowns at her and says, “You’ll still be friends with me, though, right? Sakura-chan is way cooler than me, ya know. That’s why I’m…”

“Naruto-san, it’s possible to have more than one friend. I already have a lot of friends who are ghosts, and just because Sakura-san is alive it doesn’t mean it’s any different.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

He still looks really sad, so Hinata says, “You could be friends with Sakura-san too. I could introduce you to her. She’s really nice.”

“No-one wants to be friends with me, ya know,” mutters Naruto-san. “Don’t you think I’ve tried to make friends? It’s just cool to hate me. Probly ‘cos I got no parents.”

“Sakura-san isn’t cool either,” says Hinata. “I don’t think very many people like her. Instead of playing, she usually reads and doesn’t talk to anyone. Will you come and talk to her tomorrow?”

“Okay,” says Naruto-san. “But don’t be surprised when she hates me.”

She doesn’t. She seems kind of nervous, but she’s polite. Naruto-san tells her about pranks he’s done, and she covers her mouth to show how offended she is. But it looks more like when Hinata pretends she’s offended by Izuna-san swearing than being really offended. She even laughs when Naruto-san tells her about how he tricked a whole squad of police officers and got away, although she pretends she didn’t laugh.

Naruto-san looks a lot happier after that, until lunch. That’s when three kids from the year above them start insulting him and pushing him around. Hinata comes outside and sees them, and freezes. She’s not brave enough to get in a fight for him, where she might get hurt or have to hurt someone. It makes her hate herself a little, because she thought she was doing so well but really she was just faking. She stares as Naruto-san tries to get out of a bigger boy’s grip, trying to force her mouth open, but she can’t move.

Sakura-san is braver. She shouts, “HEY! STOP PICKING ON HIM!”

One of the boys looks around. “What are you gonna do about it? Fight us? You’re even tinier than he is!”

“Yeah, I’ll fight you,” says Sakura-san. “And you’ll get in trouble for fighting a girl, and I’ll cry and say you hit me for no reason, and they’ll believe _me_ , not you.” Hinata thinks that getting hit is probably worse than getting scolded, but the boys seem uncertain.

The one holding Naruto drops him into the dirt and says, “C’mon, this isn’t worth it. We can pay back that freak another time when his bodyguard isn’t watching over him.”

After they leave, Hinata and Sakura-san rush over to Naruto-san. He has a bruise on his face, but he’s smiling. “Wow, Sakura-chan! You really saved me! No-one’s ever done that before!” Hinata is trying to hide the fact that she’s crying, but she’s not fooling herself that it’s working. “I’m really okay, Hinata-chan,” says Naruto-san, patting her on the shoulder. “That was nothing, I’ve got beat up _way_ worse than that.”

She’s not selfish enough to make it about her guilt now, so she just nods and says, “I’m glad you’re all right, Naruto-san. Next time I’ll try and be braver for you.” Unsure what else she needs to do, she bows to him.

“It’s… it’s good enough you’re here now. Really. I’m fine.”

Hinata doesn’t feel like it’s fine, but she nods anyway and pretends.

“Well, they shouldn’t get away with that!” says Sakura-san. She puts her hands on her hips and glares at where the older boys went. “We should tell Sensei.”

“We don’t have to,” says Naruto-san. “He won’t care, probably.

“Don’t you ever just want to hurt someone like _that_?” asks Tsuyu-nee-chan, lying on her back in the tree they’re standing under. “Don’t you ever just want to _hurt_ someone? Maybe not. You’re the gentlest person I’ve ever met. I’d hurt them.”

“Tsuyu-nee-chan, you’re seventeen!” whispers Hinata in horror. “You could really kill them!”

“Hmm. I’m also dead, so I think you’re really overestimating how much damage I could do.”

“Hinata-chan, who are you talking to?” Sakura-san is looking at her strangely.

“Yeah! Aren’t you gonna introduce us?” asks Naruto-san.

Hinata glances at Tsuyu-nee-chan and then at Sakura. She can’t decide. Naruto-san does it for her, though: “Hinata-chan can see ghosts. I got to meet a couple really cool ones a while ago. One of them was my cousin!”

“Ghosts aren’t real, Hinata-chan,” says Sakura-san, twisting her mouth.

“Boo,” says Tsuyu-nee-chan.

Hinata tries not to sigh, because it’s rude. She wants to lie and tell Sakura-san she’s right, that she can’t see ghosts, but it’s wrong to lie to a friend.

A thought strikes her. She’s changing the world by standing up for people who are like ghosts. Maybe she should stand up for real ghosts, too.

“Tsuyu-nee-chan isn’t the type to be offended, but that’s quite rude,” Hinata says. “How would you like it if someone said you weren’t real?”

Naruto-san _hoots_. Apparently he thinks it’s very funny.

Sakura-san turns pink and grimaces at her shoes. “Sorry. I just don’t want to believe anything without proof.”

“Why?” asks Naruto-san. “What’s so bad about it?”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to believe something that’s not true!”

“Like, the world is a good place? Or, or, your family loves you? It’s just an example,” Naruto-san says quickly. “The first one’s definitely not true, though. I think it’d still be nice to believe it. Believing Hinata-chan has cool friends who are ghosts definitely makes my life better.”

“This kid is smart,” says Tsuyu-nee-chan. “He knows truth is mutable. What’s true is what you want to be true.”

“Is mutable like… negotiable?” asks Hinata. Naruto-san and Sakura-san look around at her, confused. “Um, sorry. Tsuyu-nee-chan knows a lot of big words.”

“Changeable,” corrects Tsuyu-nee-chan. “Able to be manipulated. Hey, you should dazzle them with a _really_ big word. How ‘bout _exsanguination_? Learned that one on the front from a medical nin. Means getting the blood out of someone.”

“She told me another word,” Hinata dutifully repeats. “Exsanguination is getting the blood out of someone.”

“Wow!” Sakura-san’s eyes are shining. “That’s cool! I want to write that down. How do you spell it?”

“I’ve… I’ve never seen it written.”


End file.
